Miller v. Gross

788 So. 2d 256, 2000 WL 33258310
CourtDistrict Court of Appeal of Florida
DecidedAugust 30, 2000
Docket4D00-2951
StatusPublished
Cited by3 cases

This text of 788 So. 2d 256 (Miller v. Gross) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court of Appeal of Florida primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Miller v. Gross, 788 So. 2d 256, 2000 WL 33258310 (Fla. Ct. App. 2000).

Opinion

788 So.2d 256 (2000)

Judge Terri-Ann MILLER, Appellant,
v.
Aimee GROSS and Jane Carroll, Supervisor of Elections of Broward County, Appellees.

No. 4D00-2951.

District Court of Appeal of Florida, Fourth District.

August 30, 2000.
Rehearing Denied September 20, 2000.

*257 Michael A. Catalano of Michael A. Catalano, P.A., Miami, for appellant.

Robert C. Buschel and Joseph J. Carter of Ferrero, Buschel, Carter, Schwartzreich & Yates, Fort Lauderdale, for appellee Aimee Gross.

Samuel S. Goren and Michael D. Cirullo, Jr. of Josias, Goren, Cherof, Doody & Ezrol, Fort Lauderdale, for appellee Jane Carroll.

FARMER, J.

Article V, section 8, of the Florida Constitution provides that:

"No person shall be eligible for office of justice or judge of any court unless the person is an elector of the state and resides in the territorial jurisdiction of the court." [e.s.]

At the same time, section 101.045(1) provides:

"No person shall be permitted to vote in any election precinct or district other than the one in which the person has his or her legal residence and in which the person is registered." [e.s.]

§ 101.045, Fla. Stat. (1999). The question presented in this case is whether a serving judge in one county is qualified to run for election to a judicial office in another county. We hold that she is not and affirm the trial court's order striking her name from the ballot.

Terri-Ann Miller was first elected to the County Court in Dade County in 1992. She was re-elected in 1996. Her current term expires on January 2, 2001, and the term of the office to which she seeks election will begin on January 2, 2001. See Art. V, § 10, Fla. Const. (terms of judges shall commence on the First Tuesday after the First Monday in January following the general election).

Judge Miller is married. She and her husband have two minor children. At the time of her last election to the Dade County Court and until July 2000, she resided in Dade County with her husband and children. One of their children has attended public school there.[1]

On July 11, 2000, she rented an apartment in Broward County and registered to vote there. She and her husband used the family van to "get everything I needed" into her rental apartment in Broward. She also applied for a new Florida driver's license with her new Broward address on it. On July 17th, she filed qualifying papers for the County Judge's position in Broward to which she now seeks election.

Yet all the while she continues to maintain her judicial position in Dade County. Her husband and her children remain at the Dade County address, which is where they spend the night. Judge Miller testified *258 that she continues to live in the Dade County residence part of the time and that she still thinks of the Dade residence as the family home. In her words, she maintains two residences.

Appellee, a person registered to vote in Broward County, brought this declaratory judgment action seeking a declaration that Judge Miller is not eligible to run for the Broward County judgeship. Owing to the imminency of the election date on September 5th, the circuit judge expedited the case and denied Judge Miller's motion to continue trial.[2] After hearing the testimony of Judge Miller, as well as other evidence and testimony, the circuit judge found Judge Miller ineligible for the Broward judicial position. In his final judgment he said:

"the testimony of Judge Miller sets forth that she has a home in Dade County, Florida, where her husband and children reside and a child who has attended school in Dade County but that on July 11, 2000, the Judge rented an apartment in Broward County, Florida, and moved into said apartment on July 16, 2000, the day previous to the filing of her qualification papers for County Judge in Broward County, Florida.
[Judge Miller] stated her intent to be, and that she presently is, a resident of Broward County, Florida, since July 16, 2000, and submitted evidence of a temporary drivers license issued July 13, 2000, indicating her Broward residency....
While a person can have several temporary residences, there can only be one legal residence. A legal residence, or domicile, is the place where a person has fixed an abode with the present intention of making it their permanent home. In this case the most convincing evidence of Judge Miller's present intent is that she continues to serve as a County Judge in Dade County, Florida, which requires under the Florida Constitution that she reside in Dade County, Florida." [c.o.]

He ordered that Judge Miller's name may remain on the ballot—it being too late and too costly to print new ballots—but ordered the Elections Supervisor not to transmit or count the votes cast for Judge Miller.

Essentially the issue comes down to the meaning of the constitutional provision resides. Judge Miller argues that she can have many residences and that she currently has two, one in Dade County where she holds the office of County Judge, and another in Broward County where she hopes to be elected as a County Judge while she continues to serve as a judge in Dade. She focuses on the bare term resides and contends that she can continue to be a Dade County judge and have her family home in Dade, but meanwhile also have a personal home in Broward that will qualify her for the Broward County judicial seat. We do not agree.

There is no basis to believe that the drafters of article V, section 8, used the term resides in so loose a meaning. The qualifying phrase is "an elector of the state and resides in the territorial jurisdiction of the court." This is one of those instances where residence—or, rather, one of its derivatives —is really synonymous with domicile. *259 As the court said in a similar context in Bloomfield v. City of St. Petersburg Beach, 82 So.2d 364, 368 (Fla.1955):

"Used in this connection, `legal residence' or `domicile' means a residence at a particular place, accompanied with positive or presumptive proof of an intention to remain there for an unlimited time. The term `domicile' was defined by the Roman law to mean:
`In whatsoever place an individual has set up his household goods and made the chief seat of his affairs and interests, from which, without some special avocation, he has no intention of departing; from which, when he has departed, he is considered to be away from home, and to which, when he has returned, he is considered to have returned home.' `The place where a married man's family resides is generally to be deemed his domicile, but the presumption from this circumstance may be overcome by other circumstances."'

82 So.2d at 368; see also Wade v. Wade, 93 Fla. 1004, 113 So. 374 (1927) (word residence has a variety of significations depending upon its various applications, but used in divorce statute it is synonymous with domicile or permanent abode); Herron v. Passailaigue, 92 Fla. 818, 110 So. 539 (1926) (terms "residence" and "residing," used in relation to divorce, mean "legal residence"). In Minick v. Minick, 111 Fla. 469, 149 So. 483, 488 (1933), the court explained:

"`Residence' is of a more temporary character than `domicile.' `Residence' simply indicates the place of abode, whether permanent or temporary; `domicile' denotes a fixed, permanent residence, to which, when absent, one has the intention of returning.

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Bluebook (online)
788 So. 2d 256, 2000 WL 33258310, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/miller-v-gross-fladistctapp-2000.